Feature: Top 5 Roomba Hacks

5. Cell Phone-Controlled Roomba

Here’s a fun DIY project for a lazy weekend: a phone-controlled Roomba hack using “RoombaCtrl”, “a small Java program for your Bluetooth- and J2ME-compatible phone.” More information here.

Ever since Bluetooth adapters for Roombas appeared, I’ve wanted to control my Roomba with a cell phone. Thankfully, Mobile Processing wraps up the ugly details, like Processing does for normal Java. It makes writing little programs for your phone pretty easy, and makes whipping up a program to control a Roomba possible

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4. WiiRoomba: Wiimote + Roomba

So you’ve seen the Wiimote-controlled Smarthome and R/C car, now check out the WiiRoomba. Here’s Travis Hudson’s take:

Skip to about a minute into the clip to see the WiiRoomba in action. Awesome—my two favorite devices coming together as one

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3. Caroling Roombas

What better way to celebrate the holidays than with a trio of caroling Roombas?

The Roomba family was out caroling. They stopped by and sang a few songs. I caught a few on tape. I think they were a little tipsy on mulled 30W or something. This was a demo of RoombaMidi2, a Mac OS X program to turn your Roomba into a MIDI instrument

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2. Super Roomba with Airsoft Gun and Laser Sight

Not your average Roomba vac, this one comes equipped with an Airsoft gun and laser sight.

Something cats are really, really afraid of. Modder Chris Myers first hacked his Roomba to be controlled by Bluetooth, which he then used to bring him wine from across the room

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1. Roomba Frogger Redux

Though not the most practical Roomba mod, this Frogger redux is still a nifty enhancement none the less. For those interested, download the software here.

…using a RooTooth from RoombaDevTools for the wireless bluetooth connection to our computer and a bit more coding, we put together a game that we can play on the computer and have Roobit the Frog RoomBud actually run along the floor doing the same maneuvers as the Frogger character